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An Excerpt from The Art of Celebrity Service

After we created our standard of excellence and supporting goals, we began to identify all of the situations in which we would be in direct contact with our customers and could apply our goals. These situations are those moments of truth that define who you are in the eyes of your customers.

Moments of truth can be simple or complex, but they tend to be contact points where your customer discovers you, pays attention to you, or interacts with you. The simple ones are things like an advertisement in the newspaper, on the radio or on television. It can be your delivery van passing someone on the road and grabbing her attention, your business card handed from one person to another, your newsletter, or even your business sign. It can be the company uniforms or clothing you wear and the way you wear it. Even the message on your answering machine can deliver a positive or negative impression.

Generally, simple things create an initial impression like a promise, a hope of an expectation, but they don’t necessarily create a feeling or an experience. If done correctly, they may stimulate a thought, a response or an action. But they don’t’ go beyond that. We concentrated on identifying all of the situations when our customers might possibly come into personal contact with us.

You can do this exercise during a staff meeting. If you have a large staff, set them up in groups of four. If you have a smaller staff, you can use a white board or a flip chart and do this as a brainstorming session. Ask your staff to list the points when your customers make contact with your company.

We identified Ten Moments of Truth or contact points for our company. (see box).

These moments of truth became the basis for the Celebrity Service Experience. All of our focus on training, all of our signage, every aspect of how we act, speak and respond, as well as our presentation of merchandise centers on these contact points.

An Interview with Eric Wilder

How old were you when you first took over your parents’ garden center?
I was 26 years old.

Where had you worked before that?
I worked at a music store in a mall. We were involved in a lot of display contests. I just took to it. I don’t know how to explain it. I did so well that after six months, I was offered the position of assistant manager.

You write that the company was struggling even though your parents worked seven days a week. How did you manage to turn the company around?
It took me a couple of years to realize what to do. I was really bewildered by the plants. But then I thought, “Wait a second. Displays and merchandising and inventory are the same no matter where you go.” I received a lot great advice from leaders in the industry and made it a habit to visit other garden centers and retailers and learn from what they did. I also read a lot of business books.

Where did you get your ideas for superior customer service?
I applied things I learned from other types of businesses like Nordstrom or even Jiffy Lube. My goal was to treat people like I would want to be treated. Everyone wants to feel special and would like to be treated like a celebrity. Anyone can do this. This isn’t just for retailers. You could be a church or a nonprofit. Celebrity Service is all about how you make people feel.

How did you get your employees to buy into the Celebrity Service Experience?
You start with non-negotiable standards of behavior at the time of hire. I don’t think you have to sell them on the idea of being nice. But you also need carrots, like a team or personal bonus. There has to be an accountability factor, because one person can mess it up for everybody. Ordinary work gets ordinary pay. Extraordinary work gets extraordinary pay. If you want to extraordinary in life, stop doing ordinary work today.

What is the most memorable example of customer service you can recall?
What is more memorable are the times when we fixed a problem and how the customer responded. There have been so many, but the one I remember best happened last year when this lady’s car broke down in our parking lot. One of my employees entertained her child and drew her pictures while she was waiting for a tow truck. She didn’t buy anything that day but we made her feel special. I wouldn’t even have known about it but she sent a really nice thank you letter. Many times you can make a greater positive impact when things go wrong than when everything is humming along perfectly.

Why do you think great customer service is important?
Every day you have the opportunity to effect change in people. Yes, you are in business to make money, but what if you can make every customer’s day, too? What if everybody did that? We could change the world.

Eric Wilder, Director - Radical Retail; Author of “The Art of Celebrity Service” 408-728-0443 eric@strategicintent.org